


With the Stars at Dawn

by WishingOnWhishaw



Series: Party of Three [1]
Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Developing Relationship, Drama, F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Multi, Other, Pining, Polyamory, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 21:06:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4580133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WishingOnWhishaw/pseuds/WishingOnWhishaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel and Brian are married, but it's glaringly obvious that Brian has feelings for Danny. Strong feelings. But it's okay, because Rachel feels the same way. This is the story of how Danny became a part of their relationship.  (M rating is because of language and sexual references)</p>
            </blockquote>





	With the Stars at Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea for months and never wrote it up because I didn't think anyone else shipped these guys or cared about my headcanons for them, but. People on tumblr asked for it! So here it is. 
> 
> The title of this song is a lyric from 'Speed of Love' by Rush. I highly recommend you give it a listen because it's a rad song and i totally feel like that's how Brian feels about Dan. Especially in the setting of this fic.

“I know what you’re doing,” Rachel told her husband with a smile, the two of them alone for the night and ready to get some sleep.  
  
“Going to bed?” Brian replied, somewhat confused about what Rachel was referring to. He felt like he’d walked in on someone else’s conversation, like he’d missed the start and didn’t know what they were talking about.   
  
“With Dan,” she clarified, a small but smug grin on her face. “I saw how you were with him today.”  
  
“The sexy baby thing? It’s just to make him uncomfortable,” the scientist shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant as he pulled back the covers on their bed. “It’s funny.”  
  
“That was flirting. I’ve seen you flirt, I know what I’m looking for.” Brian shook his head, feeling bad that Rachel had picked up on that, wondering just how obvious he was being to everyone else.  
  
“You know Danny’s just a friend.”  
  
“A friend who you constantly talk about sleeping with,” Rachel pointed out. She didn’t have a problem with it; she’d always known how close the two were as friends, had always suspected that Brian had feelings for Dan which he didn’t want to think about, let alone voice to anyone. But Rachel knew, and she wasn’t about to let this slide, not after all that Brian had done today.  
  
“I’m just threatening him. Playfully,” he defended. “You’ve seen what he’s like when you mention that stuff; he gets flustered. Arin does it too.”  
  
“Arin talks about gay stuff in general. You write stories about sucking Dan off; there’s a little bit of a difference.”  
  
“Are you expecting me to say I’m trying to get with him? I’m not an idiot, Rachel.”  
  
“You are very much an idiot,” she retorted playfully, leaning over to give the man a quick kiss. “You’re smart as hell, but you’re still an idiot.”  
  
“For teasing Danny?”  
  
“For pretending that you don’t care about him!”  
  
“Of course I care about him, I’ve been friends with the guy for years. He’s probably my best friend. But that doesn't mean I’m gonna cheat on my wife and try to be with him.”  
  
“Is it cheating if I want him here too?” Rachel asked, voice gentle, testing the waters. She’d been thinking about this for a while, had planned to confront Brian about his obvious feelings and discuss their options. Admittedly, this was sooner than expected, but it was the perfect opportunity to tell Brian what she had in mind. Dan was as much her friend as her husband’s, and she couldn’t deny that she’d also developed a certain affection for the man.   
  
“You… What?” Was all Brian managed in response, brows furrowed as he tried to process the simple question and the huge list of implications that it brought with it. Rachel wanted Danny. She loved Brian, and she still wanted Dan, much like Brian had secretly thought about having the two of them.  He’d accepted a long time ago that he and Dan would never be more than good friends, and when he and Rachel got together any thoughts about developing that particular relationship went out of the window. He’d made his choice, and this was his family now. But now Rachel was here, letting him divulge in old fantasies and it was too much to take in in the space of a few short moments.  
  
“I love him just as much as you do,” she sighed, sitting up in the bed and facing Brian properly. “Don’t even try to deny it, because I know. I’ve seen the way you look at him, and you’re in deep. Way fucking deep.”  
  
“I was just teasing him,” Brian sighed, not sure he wanted to have this conversation.  
  
“Maybe, but there was truth behind it. It’s okay, I get it. He’s a great guy, and… And I want to make this work. For us.”  
  
“What _us_ is there, Rachel?” Brian snapped, angry at himself more than her. He was angry for having something great, having somebody as amazing as his wife and still managing to mess everything up. “There is no me and Danny, and there never will be. I gave up on that a long time ago, and… And I don’t care. I have you, I’m happy with you.”  
  
“You can be happy with the both of us,” she tried to explain, not phased by her husband’s outburst. She was expecting Brian to be much more defensive. “If you love him, and I love him, then what harm is there in trying to make this work.”  
  
“Wait, you want us _both_ to be with him?”  
  
“I want us all to be together. Or at least, I wanna try. What harm is it gonna do if we give it a shot?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Brian quipped, voice full of sarcasm “Maybe I might freak out my very straight best friend and ruin the best thing in my life that isn’t my marriage.”  
  
“Oh stop being so dramatic,” Rachel sighed. “It’s not going to come to that. Worst that could happen is we try it out, it doesn’t work and then you can go back to watching him run about in spandex and sing about dicks. You’re way too close to let something like that get between you.”  
  
“He probably won’t even want to,” Brian reasoned. “I mean, it’s weird, right? Being with a married couple like that? And he’s not even into guys.”  
  
“You’re not gonna know if you don’t try, though,” she pointed out. “Just…Ask him, okay?”  
  
“Shouldn’t you be there? If we’re doing this together, we should ask him together.”  
  
“He’d probably take it better coming from you. And don’t want him feeling like we’ve ganged up on him. It’s less formal if it’s just the two of you.”  
  
“Yeah, you’re right. When?”  
  
“Just do it tomorrow.”  
  
“That soon, really?” Brian asked, skeptical.  
  
“Well, yeah. You’ve got nothing to wait for. Just go for it.”  
  
“Fine, I’ll talk to him tomorrow. Can I sleep now, boss?”  
  
“Shut up and turn the light off,” Rachel retorted playfully.  
  


* * *

  
It was another hot day in the Californian desert, on their way to a filming location for their upcoming Ninja Sex Party video. They’d rented the biggest RV they could get and were all going together, making a Grump family road trip out of it. Arin was up front driving, with Suzy in the passenger seat, whilst the rest of them sat around, reading or talking, playing on their DSes. Dan was sat beside Barry reading a book, whilst Brian avoid looking at him. He and Rachel were sitting opposite each other at the the little table, Brian’s leg bouncing in a nervous gesture as he tried to plan what he was going to say. He had to wait until nobody else was around, for them to have some sort of privacy. Which was pretty difficult to find given that they were on a roadtrip with all their closest friends.

  
It took all day for the right moment to present itself. They’d all stuck together through the day, stuck in the RV for a couple of hours and then filming for the rest of the day, getting as much actual work done as they could. They shot some good scenes, got most of what they wanted and everyone was feeling pretty pleased with themselves, accomplished and excited to see how the video would look when it was all done.    
  
Night drew in, the sky quickly darkening as the sun went down over the desert. Dan had suggested they take advantage of the fact they were in the middle of nowhere and do some stargazing.  
  
“My Uncle did it with me once,” he explained, “When we went on a roadtrip. It’s awesome when there are no lights around, because you can see everything.”  
  
Everyone else seemed okay with the idea, so they pulled out blankets, set them down on the sand and lay down to look at the night sky in relative silence, the quiet buzzing of cicadas filling the air, backing their hushed whispers of amazement as they stared up at the universe. Brian sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm the nerves that he would never admit to having. This was his chance, the moment he’d been anticipating all day, and he was suddenly hit with how romantic the setting was, which only served to encourage the butterflies in his stomach. He turned to Dan who was laying beside him, remembered what Rachel had said about there being no harm in trying. He had to give it a shot.  
  
“Wanna take a walk?” Brian murmured, causing Danny’s head to fall to the side, facing him. Brian didn’t realise how close they were until he did so, looking into Dan’s eyes, taking in the soft smile on his friend’s lips and swearing he felt his heart skip a beat at the sight. Rachel was right; he really _was_ in deep.  
  
“Sure, man,” Dan whispered in reply, not waiting for a further response before he stood up, Brian following his lead and brushing sand off his pants when he was on his feet. “C’mon Rachel, we’re taking a stroll.”  
  
“I’m okay here,” she laughed quietly, waving Dan off and glancing over at the rest of the grumps who were laying together a short distance away. She figured out what Brian was doing immediately, wanted to give the two of them some space to get this sorted.  
  
“No way, you’re coming with us,” Danny insisted, grabbing her hands and pulling her up, Rachel shaking her head and chuckling as she went with him. She could hardly say no to that face. “See you in five guys!” Dan called to their group.  
  
“Where are you going?” Suzy replied, sitting up and twisting to look at the three of them.  
  
“Just for a walk; we’ll be back soon.”  
  
“Have fun,” Arin and Barry called in unison, causing them both to start giggling and Suzy to roll her eyes, giving the trio a small wave before laying back down. Rachel walked between the two men, feeling the nervous energy radiating off of Brian in waves and rolling her eyes, slipping her hand into his and squeezing it quickly, a silent gesture that she was here and they’d be okay. The kept walking, comfortably silent as they admired the stars. Danny spotted a small rock formation not far away and led them over to that, sitting down on one of the flat stones.  
  
“It’s pretty out here, huh?” The lanky man asked with a smile, looking up at the sky again. “Makes you feel kinda small, but it’s nice.”  
  
“The universe is huge,” Rachel agreed, sitting herself down beside him, the two of them pressed against each other due to the small space they were perched on. If Dan had a problem with the almost intimate gesture, the way their thighs pressed together, then he didn’t voice it. “Brian could probably tell you how big.”  
  
“It keeps getting bigger,” the physicist replied, tilting his head back. “Every second it’s expanding; you can’t put a number to its size, because it’s always changing.”  
  
“Can you put a number to the number of questions you have for me?” Dan replied, not missing a beat, his voice calm and eyes still fixed on the stars. When Brian didn’t answer immediately, he breathed out a soft laugh, looked at his best friend, saw how tense Brian was at the fact Dan had called him out on his tactics. “You wouldn’t want to get away from everyone with me like this if there wasn’t something you wanted to talk about.”  
  
“I haven’t got you away from everyone,” Brian shot back, managing a playful smirk as he nodded to Rachel, challenging Danny’s observation.  
  
“She can read you like a fucking book,” Dan explained, nudging Rachel’s knee with his own. “Even better than I can. Whatever it is, Rachel knows about it anyway, so she may as well be here.” Brian sighed, cursing Dan and how well they knew each other, their close friendship allowing Danny to back him into a corner like this. He’d already planned out what he was going to say,had thought this through all day, but the words were lost now. He was too overcome with apprehension, with fear of screwing up everything he had with his closest friend. But it was too late to back out now.  
  
“It… It involves Rachel, actually,” Brian admitted. “There’s something that I wanted to ask you, that we both wanted to ask.”  
  
“Is it bad?” Dan asked nervously, looking between his two friends with a slight look of concern.  
  
“No, not bad,” Rachel assured, putting a hand on Dan’s knee. “Just maybe a little… Strange?”  
  
“Okay, I can deal with strange,” he nodded, flashing Rachel a grin and then looking back to Brian. “Hit me with it.”  
  
“Well, we were talking. Rachel and I, and we both thought that… Well, we both wanted to ask you if, you, uh… If you wanted to be with us. In a relationship, with us,” he added for clarification.   
  
Silence. The cicadas still buzzing in the background, Brian’s heart pounding in his chest and ears, palms sweaty as regret filled him the moments the words left his mouth. He knew this was a stupid idea, that it was a long shot he was going to miss by miles. The seconds felt like hours as he watched Danny’s face fall, watch the confusion take over, waited for a response like a man condemned, waiting for the axe to fall on his neck. Waiting for Danny to freak out, to call Brian an idiot and storm off, eager to get away from his weird friend who was married and still trying to hook up with him.  
  
“You okay sweetie?” Rachel murmured, softly nudging the frozen man, bringing him out of his shocked state. Dan managed a single nod, mulling it all over, trying to figure out what Brian meant, if he wanted what was being offered to him. Brian watched his face, Dan’s expression unreadable as he tried to wrap his head around it.  
  
“You mean like a threesome?” He asked eventually, gathering himself enough to form a sentence, a small but cheeky grin in place as he looked between the couple. Rachel snorted at the comparison, not knowing why she expected anything else from Danny.  
  
“Kind of, but all the time. Not just for sex,” she explained patiently.  
  
“A love threesome,” Dan said with another nod of his head. He looked up at Brian, meeting his friends eyes with a wicked smirk. “Our very own party of three.”  
  


“You’re a nerd,” Brian laughed, relief flooding through him at the fact Dan was still here, that he hadn’t given them an outright refusal. If Danny was cracking jokes, then it was safe to assume they were gonna be okay, even if he wasn’t interested in the whole relationship thing.   
  
“Says the literal scientist,” Dan shot back easily, getting to his feet and taking one, two steps to close the distance between them. He looked into Brian’s eyes, his smile fading from one of laughter and amusement to an expression of fondness. “You weren’t joking about those blowjobs, huh?”  
  
“The dick sucking can come later,” the shorter man promised, hands moving to rest on Danny’s hips but stopping before they got there, hovering in the air, not wanting to push anything too far. “We can take it as slow as you want to.”  
  
“You’ve been taking it pretty slow already,” Dan hummed, gaze flittering over Brian’s face, appreciating his features which were dimly illuminated by the moonlight. Rachel, apparently, didn’t have the same reservations as her husband did, coming up behind Danny and running her hands down his sides, over his T-shirt.  
  
“God, tell me about it,” she complained exaggeratedly, rolling her eyes. “He’s been dying to do this for years.”  
  
“He hasn’t done anything yet,” Dan teased, letting the challenge hang in the air between them. Brian stepped up to it, hands settling on Danny’s waist and pulling him in s they were pressed against one another.  
  
“Is it too soon for me to kiss you?”  
  
“You’ve been hitting on me for three years, I think you’re good,” Danny chuckled, the noise becoming muffled as Brian pulled him down, a hand cupping Dan’s cheek and soft lips pressed against Dan’s already parted ones. The taller man practically melted at the contact, Rachel saw the tension leaving the two of them, just from that simple kiss charged with years of pent up emotions. She heard the soft moan that Danny let out, sliding her hands under his shirt to continuing stroking his sides as Dan tilted his head, tried to deepen the kiss. Brian pulled back then, mouth still open slightly, blinking open eyes that he wasn’t aware he’d closed.  
  
“Worth the wait?” Rachel asked the two of them, grinning proudly at herself and her plan, more than happy with how everything had turned out. Dan didn’t offer a verbal response, instead he twisted in the woman’s arms and captured Rachel’s lips in a gentle kiss, showing his appreciation and affection for her with the loving gesture. He pulled away slowly, not able to keep from smiling at the look of happiness on Rachel’s face, twisting to pull Brian back in so they formed a little triangular hug. “I’m taking that to mean yes, then.”  
  
“It’s typical, isn’t it?” Danny sighed quietly, still grinning slightly, leaning his head onto Brian’s shoulder and looking back up at the night sky. “You wait years for a good relationship, for the right person, and then two come along at once.”  
  
“I was here first,” Brian said quickly, smirking at Rachel as he reached down and grabbed Dan’s ass, getting a muttered ‘Unbelievable,’ from the singer which caused all three of them to start giggling. They shared a few more gentle kisses, basking in the glow of this new relationship. Soon they headed back to their blanket and the rest of their friends, Dan sandwiched between the married couple, holding each of their hands as they walked leisurely and he wondered what the hell he’d done in his life to deserve two people who loved him this much.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me if you liked this so I can be inspired to write more of my favourite polyamorous babes.


End file.
